A Country Practice by Judith Colquhoun. Blog Tour & Competition

Today, I am very pleased to be taking part in A Country Practice Blog Tour, which also hosts a fantastic giveaway!!! 

For the first time, I am featuring SoundCloud on my blog, so you can listen to an excerpt of the book. My review will follow soon for this book. In the mean time, have a read below where you will find the links to the book, an excerpt and a brilliant competition where you could win an Amazon TV Stick!!!! Wow, wishing I could enter my own competition!!

A Country Practice by Judith Colquhoun

A  heart-warming, poignant and engaging tale about the doctors, nurses and patients of the Wandin Valley Bush Nursing Hospital, and their friends and neighbours.

A Country Practice follows the dramas, loves, secrets and dilemmas of the people in an Australian small country town. There is romance, humour and tragedy for the medical staff of the local hospital, and the rural community it serves.

A desperate woman arrives at the Wandin Valley Bush Nursing Hospital in the final stages of labour. Can Dr Terence Elliott overcome his demons to save both mother and baby?

Simon Bowen, the newest doctor in town, is frustrated at being seen as an outsider by the tight knit country people. Will he succeed in winning them around ‒ especially young vet Vicky Dean?

Vicky’s mum, Sister Shirley Dean, is courted by widowed police sergeant Frank Gilroy. But is he the man for her?

Young married couple, Brendan and Molly Jones arrive in Wandin Valley. Are they prepared for the realities of country life?

Meanwhile, a teenager in love clashes with her father and a serious car accident reveals a surprising secret about two of the town’s residents.

Based on the award-winning, international hit television serial A Country Practice, this new series of novels follows the lives and loves of the rural community of Wandin Valley, South-Eastern Australia. Set in the early 1980s it is a nostalgic look at country life, yet with all the same joys and problems we face today.

Competition

The A Country Practice series of novels set in sunny Australia are perfect for curling up with on a cold winter’s day or evening! And to celebrate the release of the first two books in the series, Corazon Books is offering you the chance to win something else to keep you entertained on a cosy night in! One lucky UK-based winner will receive an Amazon Fire TV stick* – which lets you stream loads of TV programmes, films, games and music through your TV. To be in with a chance to win simply answer the following question, and send your answer to acp@greatstorieswithheart.com by midday UK time on December 11th 2015. The winner will be announced on December 14th at www.acountrypractice.info.

Q. What is the name of the young married couple who have just moved to Wandin Valley?

PLUS Please state the name of the blog where you read about the competition – all visitors’ names from each blog on the tour will be put into a hat and the first name pulled out for each blog will win paperback copies of the first two A Country Practice novels!

Don’t forget to mention Chocolatepages.wordpress.com.

Good Luck!!

*This competition is organised and run by Wyndham Media Ltd. Judges decision is final. Amazon Fire TV Stick only available for UK residents. If the overall winner resides outside of the UK they will receive instead a bundle of Corazon Books paperbacks to the same value as the UK prize. Entrants details won’t be kept or shared with third parties. Good luck!

LINKS:

AMAZON UK

AMAZON USA

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To give you more of a taster of this book, I have included an excerpt for you to read. Then you can swiftly go to the links above and download your book from Amazon! 😉

A COUNTRY PRACTICE EXCERPT

In the car park at the hospital, a black Mercedes eased in beside the yellow one. ‘Well I never,’ said Miss Bird, peering through her window, ‘are we being honoured by a visit from royalty?’ Brendan, who was now in uniform and had been giving her a backrub, confirmed that it was not Prince Charles who alighted.

It was in fact a weary and rather rumpled-looking Bernard Myers. He was met at the hospital entrance by a less than friendly Judy Loveday and taken to Marta’s office.

‘Mr Myers, Matron. Here at last.’ Marta gave her a look that would freeze hell over.

‘Thank you, Sister, I think that’s Miss Bird wanting attention, is it not?’ Judy vanished at speed. Marta held out her hand to Bernard.

‘Mr Myers, I’m Marta Kurtesz, we spoke on the phone. What a trip you’ve had. Please do sit down.’

‘Thank you. I’m sorry I look so dishevelled, I haven’t slept since I found she’d gone. Phone calls to everyone I could think of, hospitals, police, I even rang the morgue. And then I went to see her friend in Newcastle, I was out of my mind, I –’

‘Please – there’s no need to apologise.’

‘How is she? And the baby, a little girl, you said. Can I see them?’

‘My Myers, you can see your little girl in just a moment. But your wife – that’s a different matter. Sandra won’t see you or the baby. She says she wants nothing to do with either of you.’

He sat there in stunned silence. He had not expected this and it took some time to digest. He loo

looked completely shattered, Marta thought. She couldn’t help feeling some sympathy for him.

‘Me, I can understand,’ he said finally. ‘I’ve treated her so badly. But the baby?’

‘I think, in her mind, the two of you are inextricably linked. You wanted a girl, isn’t that right?’ He nodded. ‘You got what you wanted, she sees it – and I don’t think she’s being quite rational, we’re not always, when we are hurt – as just another example of you getting your own way.’

‘If I could just have a minute with her. A chance to explain.’

‘Not until she says so. She’s feeling very unloved.’

‘Unloved?’

‘She says you have found someone else.’

‘But it’s not like that at all!’

Marta wondered what it was like but he just sighed and shook his head and asked if he could please see his daughter and she took him to the nursery. Like all new fathers, he looked at the little red bundle in wonder and awe. He asked about the humidicrib, was she okay, and Marta explained about the prematurity and her tiny lungs, she’d be out of there and on her own tomorrow most likely, she was doing really well.

‘She’s beautiful, just like her mother.’ He turned to Marta. ‘I’ll get a room at the motel. I’ll stay until Sandra agrees to see me. I have to see her. I want to apologise. I want her to know that I love her. That there’s no one else, no one at all. I did one stupid thing, Matron, and I’ll do anything I can to make up for it. Can you tell her that?’

‘I’ll do my best,’ Marta said.

She hoped for the baby’s sake that she had the necessary skills for her new role of marriage guidance counsellor.

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Happy Reading and lots of luck for the competition. Remember to mention chocolatepages and if you win, do let me know. We can celebrate with chocolate and a book!  ♥